


Discontinuity

by OnyxReed



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: AU - lapis and peridot join the crystal gems, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Math and Science Metaphors, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 19:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3989698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxReed/pseuds/OnyxReed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peridot struggles to understand her new-found freedom within the comfort of her calculation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discontinuity

**Author's Note:**

> http://marxistperidot.tumblr.com/post/116757465871/discontinuity

It was easy to graph the Earth.

When she had first laid eyes upon the planet, Peridot was astonished by the Earth’s shape, first and foremost. She could trace her finger along the blue glow of its atmosphere, even the residual gases creating a near-perfect circle. She could easily designate the targets, tapping points upon her model of the Earth sketched on her touchpad. Her schematics for conquering and colonizing the planet had been impeccable. (That is, of course, until they failed.)

Despite her flawless graphical representations of her domination of the Earth, she could not find a way to adequately live on it, especially given the nature of living in which Lapis Lazuli seemed to thrive.

She ran her eyes along the horizon before they shot up exponentially into the sky. She tried to apply the same order to a puffy, misshapen cloud in the distance, one whose edges were blurred by the glare of the setting sun. She traced the rays as they tangentially graced the cloud before cascading upon the sea of Beach City.

The sea. Earth was seventy percent water. It was no wonder that the gem leaning upon Peridot’s shoulder lived on the Earth with an unparalleled ease.

“Why did you take me out here?”

Peridot let out a sigh as she proposed her question, straightening her back so that it was nearly perpendicular with the ground. 

Lapis straightened up, as well, but she turned her body to face both Peridot and the ocean before them.

“I want to jump into the water with you.”

Peridot started, immediately scooting her legs away from the cliff of the temple that they had made their temporary home. She didn’t need to take a look down there again to know how far of a jump that would be. Given the average barometric pressure of the Earth, taking into account the wind speeds that simply didn’t exist upon the erosion-free Homeworld, and understanding the impact of water that was once a scarcity, Peridot could only come up with one conclusion:

“What? That is incredibly reckless!”

“Peridot, do I need to tell you by now that I have your back?”

“No!” The technician stood, clearly threatening to stomp off. “There is nothing to gain and everything to lose. Our gems could crack!”

“Trust me.”

Peridot turned around, furrowing her eyebrows at Lapis’s stern visage. Was she actually serious about this?

“Trust me.”

The confusion became softer, yet still present. “Why?”

“I want you to feel what was denied to me for thousands of years, Peri. I thrive on this.” Lapis drew closer to the technician. “Trust. Me.”

“And what do you want me to feel exactly?”

Lapis offered a small grin, backing up and looking at the ocean once more. “You might want to take off anything that you don’t want wet.”

Lapis Lazuli plus ocean plus reckless idea, in Peridot’s mind, could only add up to disaster. However, when trust is factored in? She couldn’t tell her partner that she didn’t trust her because, at least on a visceral level, she did. She had nobody else left to trust, so she clung to Lapis.

With a quick shapeshift, Peridot changed into the old t-shirt and shorts that she had worn to disguise herself when she first landed. “How exactly is this going to work?”

Grinning as she gathered her partner’s interest, Lapis beckons her closer to the ledge of the cliff. Automatically upon seeing the height, Peridot’s anxiety returns to her face.

“Relax. All that you need to do is jump with me.” Lapis wrapped an arm around the other’s hip, clearly ready to bring Peridot down with her. Knowing the net difference in their strength, it wouldn’t be particularly difficult.

The technician scrunched her eyes closed and clung to Lapis. The next time she opened her eyes was to see her rapid descent. She looked down as they approached the water, trying to posit some way that they could possibly not get injured in the fall. After all, were those rocks? On the shore? She could feel herself pulling closer and closer to Lapis until the wind could not separate them; how would this play into the equation? She parsed through her knowledge of continuous distributions; surely she could find the probability of survival.

However, as a column of water rose up from the sea to greet them, they were forced closed once more. The cool liquid greeted Peridot’s bare feet, and with it, she felt herself cleansed of the long calculation that had dominated her head.

She couldn’t think at all, and it was terrifying. A spark took control of her mind that she had no bearings on.

Lapis’s mastery summoned forth a riptide to send them cruising back to the shore. Finally, something that Peridot could work with! Quickly, if they were a particle moving along the riptide with a velocity function v(x), and their initial position was an arbitrary 0 while they were, oh, 100 feet out to the safer part of the shore, then find the antiderivative of v(x) and…

“Peridot, you can let go of me now.”

According to her immediate calculations, Lapis was now standing in water of about two feet deep.

Peridot opened her eyes, quickly separating herself from the vice-like grip that she had on Lapis and straightening herself out. The wind returned between them, and it was uncomfortably cold.

“Did you feel it, Peridot?” Lapis took her hand as they waded to the shore.

“Well, it is cold.”

“No!” Lapis let out a sigh. “Did you feel the freedom?”

They reached the shore, and Lapis pat the sand next to her for Peridot to come and sit.

“I felt… erm,” Peridot struggled, “I felt like we were going to get shattered down there. I…” The technician’s eyes went straight back to the asymptotic horizon, dipping now into the water. Her head was, once again, teeming with the calculations that she had been made to do nearly constantly.

“How did we survive that?”

Lapis groaned, falling back into the sand. Peridot watched her with an odd look on her face.

“We should go inside. It’s getting cold.”

Peridot furrowed her eyebrows, standing up as if she demanded an explanation. However, when she looked down upon Lapis’s face, she saw the hollowness to her pupils and deadpanned expression that Peridot always associated with the task that she had been made to fail:

Empathy.

“You’re right,” the technician agreed. “The breeze will make it drop low.”

Lapis nodded half-heartedly. “Give me a few minutes.”

Peridot obliged, going through the motions of finding the probability of Lapis’s anger. It was always difficult to find the correct variable for that gem’s emotions.


End file.
